December 8, 2020 • 29 mins
The great love of King Edward II's life was a man named Piers Gaveston. As one contemporary wrote, “I do not remember to have heard that one man so loved another... and our king was incapable of moderate favor." But favoritism has its price. And love would cost both men their lives. Unrelated: Noble Blood merch is here!!!! https://store.dftba.com/collections/noble-blood
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
One quick note before we start. We now have Noble
Blood merch. I am so excited about all of it. Personally,
I cannot wait for my pins and monks to come
in the mail. The link for the store is in
the episode description and pinned on the Noble Blood Twitter account.
And as always, just a quick reminder, you can also
support the show on Patreon if you want access to bibliographies,
(00:22):
episode scripts another fun bonus content. But of course the
best support you can give to the show is just listening,
and I am so grateful for you. Let's get started.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised.
(00:48):
The Baron of Lancaster and the Baron of Warwick walked
a man with ropes around his wrists to the top
of a hill on a warm June morning. The two
barons were quiet as they walked, listening to the monotonous,
deadening pace of their footsteps in the grass. The prisoner
(01:09):
was also silent, no tears, no begging, same as it
had been during his trial just a few days prior
at Warwick's Castle, where a handful of other nobles had
condemned the prisoner to death. The word trial is loosely
applied here. There was no judge, no representation for the defendant.
(01:30):
They said that the charge was disobeying the terms of
inordinance they had agreed upon with the king, But everyone
involved knew what the real charge was. Being the King's favorite,
occupying all of his attention, receiving an endless dream of
his money and his favor. King Edward the Second was
(01:51):
devoted to this man in a way that he never
was to anyone else in his life, not even his wife.
Everyone knew who the real love of the King's life was,
and so Pierce Gaveston, first Earl of Cornwall, was sentenced
to death. There were two men on the hill to
do the actual execution. One took a sword and first
(02:16):
ran it through Gaveston's stomach and then pulled it back
out with a sickening squish. They all waited until Gaveston
fell to the grass, and then his head was sliced off.
The men who were still alive looked away from the
mangled body and began walking back down the hill towards home.
(02:37):
Gaveston's body was left outside for the elements without a burial,
to decompose in the grass and be picked at by
the birds and rodents happening by. He was twenty eight
years old at the time of his death. King Edward
the Second would be furious, demented with rage and grief
when he heard that his love Pierce Gaveston had been
(03:00):
and murdered by the barons, but his options when it
came to retaliation were limited. The barons had been filling
in the vacuum of power left by the weak and
ineffectual king, building their own private armies. The king's own wife,
Queen Isabella, had been watching it all unfold for years,
and she had her own ideas for how the country
(03:21):
should be run. And she was about to meet a
man who would help her with her coup. Her heart
had been broken by a king who never cared about
her at all. She could at least take a country
out from under him. I'm Danis Schwartz, and this is
noble blood. According to the Chronicle of the Civil Wars
(03:51):
of Edward the Second, the first time the future King
Edward the Second saw Pierce Gaveston, he tied himself to
him against all more hurdles, with an indissoluble bond of love.
It was twelve nine seven. Pierce Galveston was a teenager,
the son of a knight from Gasson, who had joined
the army of King Edward, the first to fight in Flanders.
(04:14):
The King saw the young boy particularly handsome, but also
particularly graceful, athletic and well mannered. He embodied the values
for a young man at the time when it came
to bearing and male conduct, and so the King appointed
the young man to join his son's household, to join
the staff of the Prince of Wales, and hopefully to
(04:38):
serve as a good example. The King was a little
worried about his son. That word the second seemed to
gravitate towards activities associated with the lower class, like growing
and the menial hypnotic work of farm hands like hedging
and ditching around fields. But when Edward the Second it
wasn't playing farm hand, he seemed spoiled. A wealthy dilettante.
(05:01):
He played the organ and a Welsh string instrument known
as a crwth, which is spelled I kid you not
ce r w t h. The Welsh language does not
mess around. The Prince bred horses and greyhounds. He kept
a pet Cammell and a pet lion that he insisted
(05:22):
on bringing with him on a campaign he went on
in Scotland with his father. All of that to say
he needed good upper class boys in his household to
model good courtly behavior for him. When Galveston arrived to
the Prince's household, they were about the same age. Galveston
may have been one or two years older, but from
(05:45):
that point on the two young men were inseparable. It
was love in every sense of the word. They rode together,
walked together, talked together, played together. It was no secret
with whom the Prince was spending all of his time,
and the Prince was already working hard to elevate Gaveston's
(06:06):
position in the household. He was designated associates or a companion,
rather than what one might have expected, which was for
him to be a scoutefer or an esquire. The two
men were so close that when the King wanted to
punish his son for loudly voicing his disparaging opinion about
(06:26):
the Bishop of Chester, he did so by exiling Pierres
Gaveston to France. Gaveston was still granted a salary while
he was away quote for as long as he shall
remain in parts beyond the sea during the King's pleasure
and waiting for recall, Edward the Second was bereft. He
(06:51):
wrote a letter to his sister Elizabeth, hoping that she
could talk to their stepmother and get her to intercede
with the king to bring Gavest back. We would be
greatly relieved of the anguish which we have endured, Edward
the Second wrote, and from which we continue to suffer
from one day to the next. Eventually, the King forgave
(07:13):
his son's trespasses. When the prince was knighted, Gaveston was
returned to his household like a graduation gift, and in
thirteen o six the two boys both accompanied the king
on an army expedition to Scotland to follow up on
a victory over Robert the Bruce. If you've seen Braveheart first,
(07:34):
please know that it is only history in the loosest
possible sense, but this is also around the time period
where it is supposed to have happened. Edward the Second
Father is Edward the First, of course, also known as
long Shanks. Edward the Second in the movie Braveheart is
portrayed as effeminately gay. So now might be a good
(07:57):
time to take a brief break from the story to
discussed the ways we talk about homosexuality when it comes
to history, especially history as far back as the fourteenth century.
A lot of pre eminent queer theorists and scholars actually
disagree as to whether it's useful or helpful to call
someone like Edward the Second gay when that isn't how
(08:19):
he would have identified himself, or really how anyone at
the time would have characterized him. But to me, it
also feels like a useless exercise to tie ourselves into knots,
as some writers do trying to paint Edward the Second
and Pierce Gaveston as best bros. The fact of the
matter is that textual evidence is that Edward and Gaveston
(08:41):
had a relationship that went beyond the normal courtly affection
between two men at the time, something that was noted
and observed contemporaneously, albeit obliquely. As Peter Ackroyd writes in
his book Queer History, their relationship emphasizes that five and
perhaps non existent line between camaraderie and same sex love,
(09:04):
as we've come to see in the sort of florid
portrayals of courtly love between men in the fourteenth century
and beyond. Edward the Second and Gaveston would go on
to have a formal relationship as wedded brethren, a union
that would have been solemnized before an altar in a church.
I suppose the apt comparison there is something like them
(09:27):
being blood brothers. But again, how disingenuous to pretend that
this is a story about two bros who were such
close bros that they decided to kneel in a church
side by side to show what bros they are. An
anonymous writer of a contemporary biography wrote, quote, I do
not remember to have heard that one man so loved another.
(09:50):
Our king was incapable of moderate favor, and on account
of Pierce was said to forget himself, And so Pierce
was accounted a sorcerer. At the time, sorcerer was coded
language for someone who engaged in homosexual acts, an allegation
put more explicitly by a Cistercian monk who wrote of
(10:12):
Edward the second, and please forgive my Latin or lack thereof,
in vito sodomitico numium delectabut or he wallowed in sodomy.
Edward the Second would go on to father five children,
(10:34):
one illegitimate, more than fulfilling his duty with his wife
of providing the country with a male heir. But a
king doing his duty to provide an air can sort
of be considered an endeavor completely disparate from ideas of
love or companionship. So I think we should resist the
temptation to, as I saw one less than reputable internet analysis,
(10:57):
to celebrate Edward the Second as the first bisexual king
of England. That terminology simply doesn't hold the same meaning
it does today when applied to seven hundred years ago,
and so personally I agree with the historians who don't
quite see that sort of formal denomination as particularly useful
in this case. I do find it helpful just to
(11:19):
remember that, even though he lived in the thirteen hundreds,
Edward the Second was a human being. He was a
human being who fell deeply and madly in love with
a man, and that relationship would be the central one
for almost his entire life, and that love would eventually
lead to both of their downfalls. Though the king had
(11:48):
restored Gaveston to his son's household, the reunion wouldn't last long.
After the campaign in Scotland, the army set up camp
for the winter in Lander Coast, near the English border.
That winter, twenty two prominent knights, including Gaveston, left camp
without permission to sail to France for a series of tournaments.
(12:11):
When the men returned, they found that the king had
confiscated all of their lands in anger at their disobedience. Eventually,
the king calmed down and he realized it was just
a youthful indiscretion and all of the knights were forgiven
and pardoned all of the knights except Gaveston. Out of
(12:33):
the twenty two men, only Gaveston was banished, once again
forced to leave the country. The exact reason for Gaveston's
uniquely harsh punishment isn't known, but it's possible that the
king wanted his son to move on from his teenage
crush so that he could be ready for his new
bride incoming from France. King Edward the First had arranged
(12:57):
for his son to marry Isabella, daughter of Philip the
Fourth or Philip the Fair, when she was just two
years old. Now that she was twelve, it was finally
time to make good on that betrothed, though in case
you were wondering, Edward the Second was twenty three, but
before the wedding actually took place, Edward the First died suddenly,
(13:21):
and so the prince ascended to the throne as King
Edward the Second. The first thing Edward did as king
was bring back Galveston and grant him the impressive title
of Earl of Cornwall. It wasn't unheard of for a
king to give a lower born gentleman such a grand title,
(13:42):
but given the nature of the king's relationship with Galveston,
it narrowed some eyes, especially because before the late king
died he had been planning on giving that earldom to
one of his sons by his second wife. The earldom
was supposed to go to a prince, and here comes
this new king giving it to an upstart son of
(14:04):
a knight. The new king also set Gaveston up with
a well placed wife of his own, Margaret Declare, sister
of the Earl of Gloucester and Edward's niece. Gaveston was
also appointed regent temporarily while Edward went to France to
marry his own bride, the thirteen year old Isabella. The
(14:29):
wedding in France went right as planned, and so young
Isabella accompanied her new husband back to England, where they
would have another wedding ceremony and their official coronations as
Queen and King of England. They arrived back on the
shores of Dover on a cold February afternoon, and that
very moment would doom their entire marriage. Who was waiting
(14:54):
on the shore for the new king and his new bride,
then the real love of the King's life, Pierre Gaveston.
As soon as he set foot to grass, the King
ran towards his lover, laughing and crying. They embraced for
a long time. They kissed, all the while thirteen year
(15:14):
old Isabella of France was just standing there, chilled by
the February air and the wind whipping up from the sea,
watching her new husband so deeply and so clearly in
love with a person that wasn't her. At their coronation,
Gaveston took most of the attention, to the shock of
(15:36):
nearly everyone there. He arrived wearing purple, a color meant
to be worn by only the king. An onlooker noted
that he looked more like the god Mars than a
mere mortal At the banquet. Afterward, the King spent the
entire night perched on Gaveston's small couch, gazing up into
his eyes, laughing and flirting with him. The King early
(16:00):
so much as acknowledged his new bride. The scene was
so outrageous that two of Isabella's uncles left the party
in disgust. Life as the new Queen of England was
miserable For Isabella. She was young, all alone, and her
husband constantly humiliated her with his lack of affection and
(16:22):
overt love for Gaveston. She wrote to her father, King
Philip the Fair that she was being treated poorly. The
money that was supposed to be given to her by
her new husband seemed to be slow coming. While there
was never any shortage for whatever extravagance Pierce Gaveston wanted,
the jewels that Isabella's father had presented to the King
(16:44):
as part of her dowry were being freely shared between
the King and Galveston. Isabella also told her father that
the barons of England were getting fed up as well,
that they hate at Gaveston and the King's outright favoritism.
That there were rumors that Gaveston had cruel little nicknames
(17:07):
for all of them that he used behind their backs.
The beloved Earl of Lincoln Gaveston called burst Belly, and
the Earl of Warwick was quote the black dog of Arden.
King Edward the Seconds untamed affections for this man, We're
making him and England vulnerable. In thirteen o eight, the
(17:30):
great Barons of England demanded that the King send peers
into exile. Faced directly by the displeasure of his nobles,
the King agreed. Exile also meant that he was forced
to strip Gaveston's earldom, but the King compensated for it
by immediately appointing Gaveston as the King's lieutenant in Ireland,
(17:53):
and Edward the Second was king. He did have some power,
and he assumed that the barons would settle down, and
so a year later, when he assumed things would have
calmed a bit, he brought Gaveston back to England. He
was wrong. Things had not calmbed down. By March thirteen ten,
(18:14):
the barons were all but threatening civil war if the
King refused to sit down with them and negotiate what
to do about the Gaveston problem. With his hands tied,
Edward the second agreed to create an organization called the
Lords Ordainers, a group of twenty one earls, barons and
bishops who would agree on the rules when it came
(18:36):
to managing the King's household. The Ordainers came up with
a number of new rules, including once again exile for
the King's favorite. When faced with a group of angry nobles,
some of whom had spent the better part of the
past few years assembling private armies, the King found he
(18:58):
had very little actual power. He bargained, saying he would
agree to all of the rules except the banishment of Gaveston.
The nobles refused him, and so for the third and
final time, Gaveston was formally banished from England. It would
(19:22):
only be a few months before the King decreed that
the Ordainers were actually operating illegally, that the proclamations didn't
mean anything, so that he could bring Gaveston back, but
the nobles would refuse to back down, which meant that
as soon as Gaveston was back in England, he and
the King were now on the run from the king's
(19:44):
own nobleman. While fleeing the Earl of Lancaster in May
of thirt twelve, the King was forced to leave most
of his retinue and baggage behind so that he could
travel light and avoid capture. So at Newcastle he abandoned
and his jewels and plates. He abandoned several valuable war
horses and various assorted trappings, and he also abandoned his wife,
(20:10):
who was five months pregnant. Edward, the seconds only concern
was Galveston. Gaveston fortified himself at Scarborough Castle, where he
was besieged by the Earls of Pembroke and Warwick. It
was around this time that Gaveston was also excommunicated by
the Archbishop Winchesley at St Paul's. The nobles meant war.
(20:33):
The siege ended with Gaveston's surrendering to the Earl of
Pembroke on the condition that they would negotiate with the
King for an acceptable course of action and have until
August one to do it. Pembroke agreed, and he took
Galveston into his custody to Deddington in Banbury, where he'd
be kept until they finalized their deal with the King.
(20:56):
Pembroke guaranteed his safety, and word was sent onto the King, who,
of course immediately began riding north, but then Pembroke spent
a weekend away with a cousin, and whether it was
purposeful or just an unfortunate coincidence, Gaveston was left unguarded.
(21:19):
When the Earl of Warwick heard that the hated Gaveston
was so close, he sprung into action and captured him himself.
He brought the king's favorite back to Warwick in chains,
parading him through the streets like a common thief while
the crowd jeered at him and made of scene gestures.
(21:40):
Before the king could even finish his travels, the earls
completed a quick sham trial and brought Pierce Gaveston to
black Low Hill, where two Welsh executioners were ready to
kill him by running him through, first with a sword
and then by cutting off his head. His body was
(22:05):
left to rot on the hill. Gaveston being excommunicated at
the time, meant that he couldn't have a proper Christian burial,
although the king did immediately begin fighting to recover the
body and give his love the resting place he thought
he deserved. Gaveston's body was eventually rescued and embalmed, and
(22:26):
buried in the Dominican friary at King's Langley and hare
to share. But it wouldn't be until eighteen twenty three
that a local squire would erect a monument for Pierce Gaveston,
which would read, under his name quote the minion of
a hateful king beheaded by barons as lawless as himself.
(22:47):
According to that squire, there were no heroes in this story.
The king mourned deeply, and though during the following period
he would sire heirs with his wife, his heart never
covered from the loss of his greatest love. The man
he had spent thirteen years with. You would eventually, nearly
(23:07):
a decade later, find a new favorite, a man named
Hugh Dispenser, the younger. Unlike Pierce Gaveston, who had been
relatively moderate in his spending and not too keen on
making enemies what good it did him you, Dispenser was shameless.
He spent wildly, and it wasn't long before the nobles
were calling him another Gaveston. The Queen, for her part,
(23:32):
despised Dispenser. Here was another young upstart, not only taking
her husband's attention again but flaunting it. It goes without
saying that the King's treatment of his wife hadn't improved
since the first time they set foot on English soil together.
Once her household had been fleeing a Scottish army, and
(23:53):
her husband had so dawdled on sending support that it
led to her just barely escaping with her life. Queen
Isabella eventually persuaded her husband to let her go to
France to negotiate with her brother, who was by then
the King. It was while she was at French court
that she met a man named Roger Mortimer, a formerly
(24:15):
powerful English lord who had been forced to flee the
country after a failed rebellion against Edward the Second. The
friendship between the Queen and Mortimer deepened when it was
revealed that they had a common goal removing Edward from
the throne. The two became lovers, and eventually Mortimer led
(24:35):
an expedition that would see the pair of them successfully
seize control of the English throne. Hugh de Spenser was
captured and found guilty on more charges than he could
answer for. He knew that execution was coming to him,
and that that execution would be grim, and so before
(24:58):
his verdict, he had been trying to starve himself to death,
but it didn't work, and he was right about the
execution being grim. So if you're a little squeamish about gore,
you might want to fast forward about thirty seconds. The
king's new favorite was dragged through the streets naked and
publicly humiliated, with men writing Bible verses on his skin,
(25:23):
Bible versus about the many sins of which he had
been formally accused. Dispenser was to be hanged as a commoner,
but the news was released before he was fully asphyxiated
and so still breathing, but only barely. Dispenser was tied
to a ladder and a red hot blade was used
(25:43):
to slice off his genitals. From there he was beheaded
and drawn and quartered. His head was mounted on the
gates of London. King Edward the Second was captured soon
afterward and forced to abdicate in favor of his young son,
Edward the Third, who would be king in name only
(26:05):
as Queen Isabella, and Roger Mortimer ruled as regent in
his stead. While captured and imprisoned, Edward died either of
a mysterious illness or more likely at the behest of
the new regime. The rumor with not much factual evidence
behind it, but the rumor that's plenty colorful is that
(26:26):
he was killed by guards in a way that wouldn't
show much damage to the outside of his body. Another
warning here, I'm going to say this as delicately as
I can by shoving a flaming hot poker up his
rear end. But that detail lurid as it is maybe
an example of historical embellishment, meant to emphasize the gossip
(26:50):
around the king's relationships and sexual proclivities, but that rumor
in itself is evidence that the King's relationships were explicitly sexual.
No one ever shoves a red hot poker up someone's
but because they're upset that he's such close platonic bros
with another man. That's the tragic story of Pierce Gaveston
(27:18):
and King Edward the Second. But stick around after a
brief sponsor break to hear more about what happened with
Queen Isabella. Edward the Third eventually came of age and
overthrew the regency of Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella. Roger
(27:41):
Mortimer was killed, but graciously Edward the Third spared the
life of his mother. The Queen was briefly imprisoned, but
then allowed to live in a palace just away from court.
Edward the Third did one more thing to honor the
memory of his father, the man whom he could scarcely remember,
but who had been so deeply betrayed by his wife
(28:04):
and fellow countrymen. When Queen Isabella died, her son Edward
the Third had something wrapped in linen and buried alongside her.
It was King Edward the seconds embalmed heart, the thing
that had caused so much trouble and strife and pain.
(28:24):
At last, for the first time and only in death,
what Queen Isabella finally have it. Noble Blood is a
production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from
Aaron Manky. The show was written and hosted by Dana
(28:44):
Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,
and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at
Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the
show over at Noble Blood Tales dot com. For more
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(29:06):
H
One quick note before we start. We now have Noble
Blood merch. I am so excited about all of it. Personally,
I cannot wait for my pins and monks to come
in the mail. The link for the store is in
the episode description and pinned on the Noble Blood Twitter account.
And as always, just a quick reminder, you can also
support the show on Patreon if you want access to bibliographies,
(00:22):
episode scripts another fun bonus content. But of course the
best support you can give to the show is just listening,
and I am so grateful for you. Let's get started.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised.
(00:48):
The Baron of Lancaster and the Baron of Warwick walked
a man with ropes around his wrists to the top
of a hill on a warm June morning. The two
barons were quiet as they walked, listening to the monotonous,
deadening pace of their footsteps in the grass. The prisoner
(01:09):
was also silent, no tears, no begging, same as it
had been during his trial just a few days prior
at Warwick's Castle, where a handful of other nobles had
condemned the prisoner to death. The word trial is loosely
applied here. There was no judge, no representation for the defendant.
(01:30):
They said that the charge was disobeying the terms of
inordinance they had agreed upon with the king, But everyone
involved knew what the real charge was. Being the King's favorite,
occupying all of his attention, receiving an endless dream of
his money and his favor. King Edward the Second was
(01:51):
devoted to this man in a way that he never
was to anyone else in his life, not even his wife.
Everyone knew who the real love of the King's life was,
and so Pierce Gaveston, first Earl of Cornwall, was sentenced
to death. There were two men on the hill to
do the actual execution. One took a sword and first
(02:16):
ran it through Gaveston's stomach and then pulled it back
out with a sickening squish. They all waited until Gaveston
fell to the grass, and then his head was sliced off.
The men who were still alive looked away from the
mangled body and began walking back down the hill towards home.
(02:37):
Gaveston's body was left outside for the elements without a burial,
to decompose in the grass and be picked at by
the birds and rodents happening by. He was twenty eight
years old at the time of his death. King Edward
the Second would be furious, demented with rage and grief
when he heard that his love Pierce Gaveston had been
(03:00):
and murdered by the barons, but his options when it
came to retaliation were limited. The barons had been filling
in the vacuum of power left by the weak and
ineffectual king, building their own private armies. The king's own wife,
Queen Isabella, had been watching it all unfold for years,
and she had her own ideas for how the country
(03:21):
should be run. And she was about to meet a
man who would help her with her coup. Her heart
had been broken by a king who never cared about
her at all. She could at least take a country
out from under him. I'm Danis Schwartz, and this is
noble blood. According to the Chronicle of the Civil Wars
(03:51):
of Edward the Second, the first time the future King
Edward the Second saw Pierce Gaveston, he tied himself to
him against all more hurdles, with an indissoluble bond of love.
It was twelve nine seven. Pierce Galveston was a teenager,
the son of a knight from Gasson, who had joined
the army of King Edward, the first to fight in Flanders.
(04:14):
The King saw the young boy particularly handsome, but also
particularly graceful, athletic and well mannered. He embodied the values
for a young man at the time when it came
to bearing and male conduct, and so the King appointed
the young man to join his son's household, to join
the staff of the Prince of Wales, and hopefully to
(04:38):
serve as a good example. The King was a little
worried about his son. That word the second seemed to
gravitate towards activities associated with the lower class, like growing
and the menial hypnotic work of farm hands like hedging
and ditching around fields. But when Edward the Second it
wasn't playing farm hand, he seemed spoiled. A wealthy dilettante.
(05:01):
He played the organ and a Welsh string instrument known
as a crwth, which is spelled I kid you not
ce r w t h. The Welsh language does not
mess around. The Prince bred horses and greyhounds. He kept
a pet Cammell and a pet lion that he insisted
(05:22):
on bringing with him on a campaign he went on
in Scotland with his father. All of that to say
he needed good upper class boys in his household to
model good courtly behavior for him. When Galveston arrived to
the Prince's household, they were about the same age. Galveston
may have been one or two years older, but from
(05:45):
that point on the two young men were inseparable. It
was love in every sense of the word. They rode together,
walked together, talked together, played together. It was no secret
with whom the Prince was spending all of his time,
and the Prince was already working hard to elevate Gaveston's
(06:06):
position in the household. He was designated associates or a companion,
rather than what one might have expected, which was for
him to be a scoutefer or an esquire. The two
men were so close that when the King wanted to
punish his son for loudly voicing his disparaging opinion about
(06:26):
the Bishop of Chester, he did so by exiling Pierres
Gaveston to France. Gaveston was still granted a salary while
he was away quote for as long as he shall
remain in parts beyond the sea during the King's pleasure
and waiting for recall, Edward the Second was bereft. He
(06:51):
wrote a letter to his sister Elizabeth, hoping that she
could talk to their stepmother and get her to intercede
with the king to bring Gavest back. We would be
greatly relieved of the anguish which we have endured, Edward
the Second wrote, and from which we continue to suffer
from one day to the next. Eventually, the King forgave
(07:13):
his son's trespasses. When the prince was knighted, Gaveston was
returned to his household like a graduation gift, and in
thirteen o six the two boys both accompanied the king
on an army expedition to Scotland to follow up on
a victory over Robert the Bruce. If you've seen Braveheart first,
(07:34):
please know that it is only history in the loosest
possible sense, but this is also around the time period
where it is supposed to have happened. Edward the Second
Father is Edward the First, of course, also known as
long Shanks. Edward the Second in the movie Braveheart is
portrayed as effeminately gay. So now might be a good
(07:57):
time to take a brief break from the story to
discussed the ways we talk about homosexuality when it comes
to history, especially history as far back as the fourteenth century.
A lot of pre eminent queer theorists and scholars actually
disagree as to whether it's useful or helpful to call
someone like Edward the Second gay when that isn't how
(08:19):
he would have identified himself, or really how anyone at
the time would have characterized him. But to me, it
also feels like a useless exercise to tie ourselves into knots,
as some writers do trying to paint Edward the Second
and Pierce Gaveston as best bros. The fact of the
matter is that textual evidence is that Edward and Gaveston
(08:41):
had a relationship that went beyond the normal courtly affection
between two men at the time, something that was noted
and observed contemporaneously, albeit obliquely. As Peter Ackroyd writes in
his book Queer History, their relationship emphasizes that five and
perhaps non existent line between camaraderie and same sex love,
(09:04):
as we've come to see in the sort of florid
portrayals of courtly love between men in the fourteenth century
and beyond. Edward the Second and Gaveston would go on
to have a formal relationship as wedded brethren, a union
that would have been solemnized before an altar in a church.
I suppose the apt comparison there is something like them
(09:27):
being blood brothers. But again, how disingenuous to pretend that
this is a story about two bros who were such
close bros that they decided to kneel in a church
side by side to show what bros they are. An
anonymous writer of a contemporary biography wrote, quote, I do
not remember to have heard that one man so loved another.
(09:50):
Our king was incapable of moderate favor, and on account
of Pierce was said to forget himself, And so Pierce
was accounted a sorcerer. At the time, sorcerer was coded
language for someone who engaged in homosexual acts, an allegation
put more explicitly by a Cistercian monk who wrote of
(10:12):
Edward the second, and please forgive my Latin or lack thereof,
in vito sodomitico numium delectabut or he wallowed in sodomy.
Edward the Second would go on to father five children,
(10:34):
one illegitimate, more than fulfilling his duty with his wife
of providing the country with a male heir. But a
king doing his duty to provide an air can sort
of be considered an endeavor completely disparate from ideas of
love or companionship. So I think we should resist the
temptation to, as I saw one less than reputable internet analysis,
(10:57):
to celebrate Edward the Second as the first bisexual king
of England. That terminology simply doesn't hold the same meaning
it does today when applied to seven hundred years ago,
and so personally I agree with the historians who don't
quite see that sort of formal denomination as particularly useful
in this case. I do find it helpful just to
(11:19):
remember that, even though he lived in the thirteen hundreds,
Edward the Second was a human being. He was a
human being who fell deeply and madly in love with
a man, and that relationship would be the central one
for almost his entire life, and that love would eventually
lead to both of their downfalls. Though the king had
(11:48):
restored Gaveston to his son's household, the reunion wouldn't last long.
After the campaign in Scotland, the army set up camp
for the winter in Lander Coast, near the English border.
That winter, twenty two prominent knights, including Gaveston, left camp
without permission to sail to France for a series of tournaments.
(12:11):
When the men returned, they found that the king had
confiscated all of their lands in anger at their disobedience. Eventually,
the king calmed down and he realized it was just
a youthful indiscretion and all of the knights were forgiven
and pardoned all of the knights except Gaveston. Out of
(12:33):
the twenty two men, only Gaveston was banished, once again
forced to leave the country. The exact reason for Gaveston's
uniquely harsh punishment isn't known, but it's possible that the
king wanted his son to move on from his teenage
crush so that he could be ready for his new
bride incoming from France. King Edward the First had arranged
(12:57):
for his son to marry Isabella, daughter of Philip the
Fourth or Philip the Fair, when she was just two
years old. Now that she was twelve, it was finally
time to make good on that betrothed, though in case
you were wondering, Edward the Second was twenty three, but
before the wedding actually took place, Edward the First died suddenly,
(13:21):
and so the prince ascended to the throne as King
Edward the Second. The first thing Edward did as king
was bring back Galveston and grant him the impressive title
of Earl of Cornwall. It wasn't unheard of for a
king to give a lower born gentleman such a grand title,
(13:42):
but given the nature of the king's relationship with Galveston,
it narrowed some eyes, especially because before the late king
died he had been planning on giving that earldom to
one of his sons by his second wife. The earldom
was supposed to go to a prince, and here comes
this new king giving it to an upstart son of
(14:04):
a knight. The new king also set Gaveston up with
a well placed wife of his own, Margaret Declare, sister
of the Earl of Gloucester and Edward's niece. Gaveston was
also appointed regent temporarily while Edward went to France to
marry his own bride, the thirteen year old Isabella. The
(14:29):
wedding in France went right as planned, and so young
Isabella accompanied her new husband back to England, where they
would have another wedding ceremony and their official coronations as
Queen and King of England. They arrived back on the
shores of Dover on a cold February afternoon, and that
very moment would doom their entire marriage. Who was waiting
(14:54):
on the shore for the new king and his new bride,
then the real love of the King's life, Pierre Gaveston.
As soon as he set foot to grass, the King
ran towards his lover, laughing and crying. They embraced for
a long time. They kissed, all the while thirteen year
(15:14):
old Isabella of France was just standing there, chilled by
the February air and the wind whipping up from the sea,
watching her new husband so deeply and so clearly in
love with a person that wasn't her. At their coronation,
Gaveston took most of the attention, to the shock of
(15:36):
nearly everyone there. He arrived wearing purple, a color meant
to be worn by only the king. An onlooker noted
that he looked more like the god Mars than a
mere mortal At the banquet. Afterward, the King spent the
entire night perched on Gaveston's small couch, gazing up into
his eyes, laughing and flirting with him. The King early
(16:00):
so much as acknowledged his new bride. The scene was
so outrageous that two of Isabella's uncles left the party
in disgust. Life as the new Queen of England was
miserable For Isabella. She was young, all alone, and her
husband constantly humiliated her with his lack of affection and
(16:22):
overt love for Gaveston. She wrote to her father, King
Philip the Fair that she was being treated poorly. The
money that was supposed to be given to her by
her new husband seemed to be slow coming. While there
was never any shortage for whatever extravagance Pierce Gaveston wanted,
the jewels that Isabella's father had presented to the King
(16:44):
as part of her dowry were being freely shared between
the King and Galveston. Isabella also told her father that
the barons of England were getting fed up as well,
that they hate at Gaveston and the King's outright favoritism.
That there were rumors that Gaveston had cruel little nicknames
(17:07):
for all of them that he used behind their backs.
The beloved Earl of Lincoln Gaveston called burst Belly, and
the Earl of Warwick was quote the black dog of Arden.
King Edward the Seconds untamed affections for this man, We're
making him and England vulnerable. In thirteen o eight, the
(17:30):
great Barons of England demanded that the King send peers
into exile. Faced directly by the displeasure of his nobles,
the King agreed. Exile also meant that he was forced
to strip Gaveston's earldom, but the King compensated for it
by immediately appointing Gaveston as the King's lieutenant in Ireland,
(17:53):
and Edward the Second was king. He did have some power,
and he assumed that the barons would settle down, and
so a year later, when he assumed things would have
calmed a bit, he brought Gaveston back to England. He
was wrong. Things had not calmbed down. By March thirteen ten,
(18:14):
the barons were all but threatening civil war if the
King refused to sit down with them and negotiate what
to do about the Gaveston problem. With his hands tied,
Edward the second agreed to create an organization called the
Lords Ordainers, a group of twenty one earls, barons and
bishops who would agree on the rules when it came
(18:36):
to managing the King's household. The Ordainers came up with
a number of new rules, including once again exile for
the King's favorite. When faced with a group of angry nobles,
some of whom had spent the better part of the
past few years assembling private armies, the King found he
(18:58):
had very little actual power. He bargained, saying he would
agree to all of the rules except the banishment of Gaveston.
The nobles refused him, and so for the third and
final time, Gaveston was formally banished from England. It would
(19:22):
only be a few months before the King decreed that
the Ordainers were actually operating illegally, that the proclamations didn't
mean anything, so that he could bring Gaveston back, but
the nobles would refuse to back down, which meant that
as soon as Gaveston was back in England, he and
the King were now on the run from the king's
(19:44):
own nobleman. While fleeing the Earl of Lancaster in May
of thirt twelve, the King was forced to leave most
of his retinue and baggage behind so that he could
travel light and avoid capture. So at Newcastle he abandoned
and his jewels and plates. He abandoned several valuable war
horses and various assorted trappings, and he also abandoned his wife,
(20:10):
who was five months pregnant. Edward, the seconds only concern
was Galveston. Gaveston fortified himself at Scarborough Castle, where he
was besieged by the Earls of Pembroke and Warwick. It
was around this time that Gaveston was also excommunicated by
the Archbishop Winchesley at St Paul's. The nobles meant war.
(20:33):
The siege ended with Gaveston's surrendering to the Earl of
Pembroke on the condition that they would negotiate with the
King for an acceptable course of action and have until
August one to do it. Pembroke agreed, and he took
Galveston into his custody to Deddington in Banbury, where he'd
be kept until they finalized their deal with the King.
(20:56):
Pembroke guaranteed his safety, and word was sent onto the King, who,
of course immediately began riding north, but then Pembroke spent
a weekend away with a cousin, and whether it was
purposeful or just an unfortunate coincidence, Gaveston was left unguarded.
(21:19):
When the Earl of Warwick heard that the hated Gaveston
was so close, he sprung into action and captured him himself.
He brought the king's favorite back to Warwick in chains,
parading him through the streets like a common thief while
the crowd jeered at him and made of scene gestures.
(21:40):
Before the king could even finish his travels, the earls
completed a quick sham trial and brought Pierce Gaveston to
black Low Hill, where two Welsh executioners were ready to
kill him by running him through, first with a sword
and then by cutting off his head. His body was
(22:05):
left to rot on the hill. Gaveston being excommunicated at
the time, meant that he couldn't have a proper Christian burial,
although the king did immediately begin fighting to recover the
body and give his love the resting place he thought
he deserved. Gaveston's body was eventually rescued and embalmed, and
(22:26):
buried in the Dominican friary at King's Langley and hare
to share. But it wouldn't be until eighteen twenty three
that a local squire would erect a monument for Pierce Gaveston,
which would read, under his name quote the minion of
a hateful king beheaded by barons as lawless as himself.
(22:47):
According to that squire, there were no heroes in this story.
The king mourned deeply, and though during the following period
he would sire heirs with his wife, his heart never
covered from the loss of his greatest love. The man
he had spent thirteen years with. You would eventually, nearly
(23:07):
a decade later, find a new favorite, a man named
Hugh Dispenser, the younger. Unlike Pierce Gaveston, who had been
relatively moderate in his spending and not too keen on
making enemies what good it did him you, Dispenser was shameless.
He spent wildly, and it wasn't long before the nobles
were calling him another Gaveston. The Queen, for her part,
(23:32):
despised Dispenser. Here was another young upstart, not only taking
her husband's attention again but flaunting it. It goes without
saying that the King's treatment of his wife hadn't improved
since the first time they set foot on English soil together.
Once her household had been fleeing a Scottish army, and
(23:53):
her husband had so dawdled on sending support that it
led to her just barely escaping with her life. Queen
Isabella eventually persuaded her husband to let her go to
France to negotiate with her brother, who was by then
the King. It was while she was at French court
that she met a man named Roger Mortimer, a formerly
(24:15):
powerful English lord who had been forced to flee the
country after a failed rebellion against Edward the Second. The
friendship between the Queen and Mortimer deepened when it was
revealed that they had a common goal removing Edward from
the throne. The two became lovers, and eventually Mortimer led
(24:35):
an expedition that would see the pair of them successfully
seize control of the English throne. Hugh de Spenser was
captured and found guilty on more charges than he could
answer for. He knew that execution was coming to him,
and that that execution would be grim, and so before
(24:58):
his verdict, he had been trying to starve himself to death,
but it didn't work, and he was right about the
execution being grim. So if you're a little squeamish about gore,
you might want to fast forward about thirty seconds. The
king's new favorite was dragged through the streets naked and
publicly humiliated, with men writing Bible verses on his skin,
(25:23):
Bible versus about the many sins of which he had
been formally accused. Dispenser was to be hanged as a commoner,
but the news was released before he was fully asphyxiated
and so still breathing, but only barely. Dispenser was tied
to a ladder and a red hot blade was used
(25:43):
to slice off his genitals. From there he was beheaded
and drawn and quartered. His head was mounted on the
gates of London. King Edward the Second was captured soon
afterward and forced to abdicate in favor of his young son,
Edward the Third, who would be king in name only
(26:05):
as Queen Isabella, and Roger Mortimer ruled as regent in
his stead. While captured and imprisoned, Edward died either of
a mysterious illness or more likely at the behest of
the new regime. The rumor with not much factual evidence
behind it, but the rumor that's plenty colorful is that
(26:26):
he was killed by guards in a way that wouldn't
show much damage to the outside of his body. Another
warning here, I'm going to say this as delicately as
I can by shoving a flaming hot poker up his
rear end. But that detail lurid as it is maybe
an example of historical embellishment, meant to emphasize the gossip
(26:50):
around the king's relationships and sexual proclivities, but that rumor
in itself is evidence that the King's relationships were explicitly sexual.
No one ever shoves a red hot poker up someone's
but because they're upset that he's such close platonic bros
with another man. That's the tragic story of Pierce Gaveston
(27:18):
and King Edward the Second. But stick around after a
brief sponsor break to hear more about what happened with
Queen Isabella. Edward the Third eventually came of age and
overthrew the regency of Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella. Roger
(27:41):
Mortimer was killed, but graciously Edward the Third spared the
life of his mother. The Queen was briefly imprisoned, but
then allowed to live in a palace just away from court.
Edward the Third did one more thing to honor the
memory of his father, the man whom he could scarcely remember,
but who had been so deeply betrayed by his wife
(28:04):
and fellow countrymen. When Queen Isabella died, her son Edward
the Third had something wrapped in linen and buried alongside her.
It was King Edward the seconds embalmed heart, the thing
that had caused so much trouble and strife and pain.
(28:24):
At last, for the first time and only in death,
what Queen Isabella finally have it. Noble Blood is a
production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from
Aaron Manky. The show was written and hosted by Dana
(28:44):
Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,
and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at
Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the
show over at Noble Blood Tales dot com. For more
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(29:06):
H
Host
Dana Schwartz
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!